


The Fearless Moral Inventory of Milhouse Van Houten

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Simpsons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-18
Updated: 2007-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:09:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Milhouse is an alcoholic. Milhouse is a war correspondent. Milhouse loves Lisa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fearless Moral Inventory of Milhouse Van Houten

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Blythe

 

 

He's one of those guys who works a lot better in college than he did in high school. Suddenly his glasses and big nose and bowl cut make him look like some hipster comedian.

Girls like that.

Girls giggle over plastic cups full of cheap beer. Girls brush up against him at freshman mixers. Girls invite him into their dorm rooms, stumble past the heaps of clothes on the floor, pull him down on their narrow beds, have drunk, fumbling sex with him. Girls get their feelings hurt when he doesn't call them the next day. Girls pick big, public fights with him in the library. Other girls are secretly impressed by budding Lotharios and leave him flirtatious Facebook comments.

He drinks a lot. When he graduates at 22, he has the beginnings of a problem. He gets a job at the Gotham Spectator, writing pieces on corporate finance. His father is proud. His mother says: "I hope this is what you want, honey."

Two and a half years later, he wraps his Honda Civic around a pole, 4 A.M., drunk as shit, a woman named Vonda or Wanda or something in the passenger seat. They both walk away, their bodies too boozed-up to tense for impact.

The next day, Lisa calls.

"Happy birthday," she says. "How's the Spectator?"

There's a long pause. And then he makes a noise.

"Are you-- _crying_?" Lisa asks, hesitant.

"I think I'm an alcoholic," Milhouse says, snuffling. His face itches, stings from the tears.

There's another long pause.

"Stay there," Lisa says, and hangs up.

For a while, Milhouse thinks she's going to come over, which is stupid, because she's in Oxford, studying adulthood rites of the matriarchal Mosuo people. But still, when the doorbell rings, he's surprised to see Bart.

"Ring a-fucking _ding_ ," Bart says. "Come on. I'm taking you to a meeting."

Bart works in this custom auto-body shop an hour up the turnpike, and Milhouse almost never sees him anymore. He didn't even know Bart used to have a "real bad meth addiction". Milhouse isn't sure he believes him, but if you have to go to an AA meeting, there are probably worse ways than being driven by your childhood friend.

"Hi," he tells the circle of folding chairs, only six other people there. "My name is Milhouse, and I'm an alcoholic."

"Goooooooo, Milhouse!" Bart hoots. The group leader frowns at him.

***

"My name is Milhouse, and I haven't had a drink in 31 days," he says.

The group applauds, and he gets a chip. _One month_ , it reads. He holds it tight until it leaves a circle pressed into the flesh of his palm.

After the lunchtime meeting, he goes back to the Spectator, walks into his boss' office, and quits.

"What the hell are you going to do?" His boss demands. People don't quit the Spectator. The Spectator is where you aspire to end up after slogging in the trenches, after all.

"I dunno," Milhouse says.

He doesn't see the point of staying for two weeks. He walks back to his apartment, and looks around at how little of himself is in this place. Then he goes down to the super and leaves a check for six months' rent. That leaves him 2500 dollars in his checking account, so he packs a bag, takes a cab to JFK, and gets on the first flight that's going far away.

The plane is going to Lagos, Nigeria.

Lagos is huge, sprawling, dirty, vibrant. He hides in his hotel, lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His scalp itches.

"My scalp itches," he says, experimentally. He hasn't spoken to another human in four days.

He goes downstairs. There aren't any chairs in the lobby, and he finds himself in the hotel bar. It smells like cigarette smoke and hard liquor. Milhouse inhales. Holds the breath. Lets it out, lightheaded.

He sits at the bar. Stares at the bottles. He remembers the taste. How it felt to be drunk. How fucking _great_ it felt. How smart and handsome and funny he was when he was drunk.

"Sir?" The bartender asks. "What can I get you?"

Milhouse looks at the bottles of vodka. He likes vodka. The clean burn of it going down. How you can hide it in orange juice when your mother makes you have brunch with her.

"Apple juice," he says. The bartender moves away.

"Sick?" An English voice says, from nearby. Milhouse looks over. A balding, 40ish white guy, one of those khaki safari vests, slight gut. He gestures to the apple juice. "Montezuma's revenge?"

"I'm an alcoholic," Milhouse says. He's still trying this out, how it feels to say this out loud, how it feels to say it _and know it for truth_. It feels kind of good. He kind of likes the flash of embarrassment he sees on peoples' faces when he says it.

The English guy grins. Holds out a hand. "Good to meet you."

***

"--Wait, wait," Bart says. The satellite connection crackles alarmingly. "He gave you a job because his last correspondent was an alkie, too?"

"It wasn't exactly like that," Milhouse says, but the connection flares, fades, dies, and until the end of time, Bart Simpson will wander around Springfield telling people that story.

***

Milhouse likes conflict reporting. It's painful, hot, dangerous. It hurts, which makes it feel real.

He goes back to civilization once a month or so, takes showers, sleeps in air-conditioned rooms, fucks the kind of girl whose eyes light up when you say "I'm a war correspondent."

He knows he's substituting one addiction for another: after a week or two back in The World, he'll get the shakes. He can't wait to get back out there, be in the back seat of some beat-up Land Rover, rumbling down a rebel-controlled backroad in some shitty country, taking notes on a story no one in the Western Hemisphere cares about.

***

He gets really _into_ telling the truth.

"I'm an alcoholic."

"You know this is just a one-night thing, right?"

"Your development coordinators are all on the take."

"You hear "I'm not looking for a relationship" and think that you'll be the exception. You're not gonna be the exception."

"Your glorious peoples' revolution is doomed to fail."

"I spent last night vomiting. Yeah, well. I should know better than to eat shrimp this far inland."

***

Two years go by. One day he gets a note in his email from his mom:

_Your super wants to know what he should do with your stuff. It's still in the storage locker, but he needs the space._

He knows his mom wants him to say something like: _Keep everything, I'll be home in two days._

 _Tell him he can have it or sell it or throw it out_ , he tells her. It feels good to say that. It feels good to say that to _her_ , to showcase his non-attachment this way, to this woman.

Five minutes later, he sends another email:

_I'm sorry I'm hurting you, Mom. I'm doing the best I can._

***

He runs into Lisa at a Chinese embassy breakfast reception in London. She's talking earnestly to some diplomat, asking him if he _knows_ about the plight of the Mosuo.

"...well, if you don't know, shouldn't you? How can you claim to represent the interests of the peoples of _Zhongguo_ if you don't speak for all of them?"

The diplomat looks up, grateful, at Milhouse's approach.

"Hello, Lisa."

"Milhouse!" She says. "Oh, Milhouse!"

She hugs him, her little arms tight around his neck.

He hasn't seen her in four years. And she still isn't exactly pretty, and he can see that it's on purpose now, with the severely-braided hair, and the glasses, and the thrift-store clothes. But she's beautiful to him. She still makes him stutter a little.

"H-how's it going, Lisa?"

If he still drank, he'd be drinking right now. Instead, they stake out a corner near the melon balls and talk.

"It's wonderful," she gushes. "Everything I thought Oxford would be and more. I've never been so happy."

She tells him about the vegan women's household she lives in, about her yoga practice, the book of essays she's working on - "About passive female resistance in Tibet", about how she's been thinking about going to India for a year.

"And you? Bart keeps insisting you're a... a war correspondent?"

They stand, a little nervous, a little awkward, and chat for twenty or thirty minutes. And then Milhouse makes up an excuse, and goes back to his hotel room. In his hotel room, he opens up the mini-bar. He stares at the little bottles. He remembers the bite of gin, the slide of bourbon, the sharp scrape of tequila.

He closes the door.

He opens it again four and a half minutes later.

He closes it again.

He calls his sponsor.

"It's five in the fucking morning--"

His sponsor listens.

Milhouse packs. Goes down to the front desk.

"I need a room without a mini-bar," he says.

" _Now_?" The clerk asks.

"I'm a fucking alcoholic," Milhouse snaps.

He calls his sponsor back.

"I thought this would get easier," he says.

There's a pause. The transatlantic connection crackles, dully.

"I have seventeen years," his sponsor says. "And last year, my daughter graduated from college. I sat in that motel room after the ceremony. And I opened up a Budweiser. And I just sat there and inhaled for a while-- you know?"

Milhouse nods, remembers his sponsor can't see him, clears his throat. "Yeah. Then what?"

"I poured it down the john," his sponsor says. "And then I cried."

"Thanks," Milhouse says. "That's so cheerful and uplifting."

"Kid-- Did something happen? What's going on?"

Milhouse clears his throat again. "There's, uh. There's this girl."

" _Oh..._ "

Yeah, Milhouse thinks. Yeah.

***

In the morning, Milhouse takes a train to Oxford, and then gets in a cab. He finds Lisa's vegan women's household, tells the cabbie to wait, and knocks on the door.

"I'm Milhouse," he tells the girl with pink hair who opens the door. "I'm here to see Lisa Simpson."

"Lisaaaaaaaaaaa," the girl yells, staring at Milhouse.

"...Hi," Lisa says, paused on the steep flight of stairs. She's wearing a smock. Her hair is loose. Her feet are bare. Milhouse looks up at her.

"You know I'm an alcoholic, right?"

The girl with pink hair looks from Lisa to Milhouse. Turns, yells down the hall: "Sheilaaaaaa!"

Lisa comes down a few more steps. "Yeah. I know."

"I don't _lie_ ," Milhouse says. He's not good at explaining this part, at explaining how vitally important the truth is to him, how being drunk is like a big long lie, and lying is a little like being drunk, and how he can't do one if he's not going to do the other.

"Okay," Lisa says.

"I'm still figuring out how to be a decent person and not lie," he says. "Like when your mom asks how you like her hair, or whatever. So I'm not saying I'm this amazing person. But I don't lie. And last night, I felt like I was lying. Because I didn't tell you something."

"Sheila, hurry the fuck UP," pink hair girl yells.

"Okay," Lisa says, again. She's scrunching her little toes into the worn runner on the stairs.

"Anyway," Milhouse says. "I'm in love with you."

Lisa stares at him.

A girl with her hair in tiny braids hurries up the hallway. "What?"

"You missed it," pink hair girl sighs. "Forget it."

"I just wanted to tell you," Milhouse says.

Lisa comes down the rest of the stairs. She looks out at the street behind him, frowns.

"Well-- Geez, Milhouse. Is that your cab? Are you going right back?"

"I have to get on a plane tonight. There's a war in the Congo."

"There's always a war in the Congo," Lisa says. She sounds impatient. Irritated.

He clears his throat. "I just-- I just wanted to come tell you. Is this weird? Should I not have--?"

"Milhouse," she interrupts. And stops, cold.

He waits. The pink hair girl waits. The girl with her hair in braids waits. The cabbie waits.

Lisa's staring up at him, her straight little eyebrows puckered, and then she takes a deep breath, like she's going to say something really _important_ :

"What should I do--"

He cuts her off. He knows her lines like he knows his own:

"If I don't come back? Marry a good man. Have good children."

She frowns at him. Her glasses are sliding down her nose, and she pushes them back up, impatiently.

"If I want to _email you_ , Milhouse. What should I do if I want to email you? I don't have your address or anything."

"...Ah," Milhouse says. He considers for a moment. "I'll send you an email from the airport."

"All right," Lisa says.

"And then you can respond. And you'll have my address."

"Got it," Lisa says.

He nods. "Okay, cool."

They look at each other for a moment, solemn, still-young, awkwardly self-aware of the drama of this moment. Milhouse thinks of _Casablanca_ , and then, for no reason, he thinks of _The Goonies_.

He sniffs. Scratches his nose.

"I should--" he says.

"Okay," Lisa says. She takes his hand. Her fingers are a tiny bit sweaty. Milhouse squeezes them tight.

"I could maybe walk you to your cab," Lisa says.

Milhouse feels his heart expand, _thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump_ , and he stutters a little: "Y-you're not wearing shoes--"

Lisa looks up at him.

And shrugs.

"Okay," Milhouse says.

The cabbie honks his horn, impatient.

~fin~

 


End file.
